Ronnie McBrayer

by Ronnie McBrayer

On Easter morning, a Sunday School teacher began to quiz her class of young children about the real meaning of the day. “What is Easter?” she asked, and the students were ready to respond. A little boy said, “Easter is that holiday when we get together with our families, eat turkey, and everyone is thankful.” The teacher answered, “No, not quite. Does anyone else know?” Another child answered, “Easter is the holiday when we grill burgers and hotdogs, shoot off fireworks, and celebrate our country’s birthday.”

Again, the teacher replied, “No, not quite.” She began to wonder if anyone in the room knew what Easter was really about. But then a little girl stood and began speaking, “Easter is a Christian holiday that follows the remembrance of Jesus’ death on Good Friday. Jesus was buried in tomb, and a large rock was rolled over the entrance.”

The teacher nearly squealed in delight. But then the girl continued, “And on Easter morning the stone is rolled away so Jesus can get out. Then, if he sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter.” No, not quite.

While the children in this story gave incomplete answers, the question asked is still a good one: “What is Easter?” Despite a gazillion Easter sermons and Sunday School classes, our answers may still be a little lacking.

Many believers spend Easter morning proclaiming or listening to massive, exhaustive explanations of the resurrection miracle. The gospel accounts are analyzed and reconciled; scientific objections are considered and then dismantled; skeptics are scolded and unbelievers are disregarded. It is apologetic calisthenics, a vigorous workout in defending Jesus’ reputation, and not quite the answer.

Easter is reduced to defending the Christian dogma, but it is so much more than that. It is a revolution of transforming hope for the world. Easter is not just a doctrine; it is a powerful, redemptive way to live today. When God raised Jesus from the dead – and Christians believe Christ is indeed risen – he signaled the beginning of the redemption of all things, and provided the potency to bring this redemption to its fulfillment.

So we must do more than explain Easter. We must live it and “get in” on it today. We must use it to instigate heaven on earth. We must do more than say “He is Risen,” we must become the living proof of Christ’s resurrection power.

Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author of multiple books. You can read more and receive regular e-columns in your inbox at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.

By Ronnie McBrayer

Last year I returned to speak at the church that was my first pastorate. When I first went there I was a naïve, ignorant child, full of pep and vinegar, ready to extinguish hell with a water gun. Equipped with a fresh ordination papers and a new red Bible, I worked hard to demonstrate that I knew everything there was to know about leading a congregation. Heck, I knew everything about everything.

When it was whispered in the gossip parlors of the church and the greater community that I did not know everything about everything, and that I was far too young for the responsibility now thrust upon me, I worked all the harder to prove my critics wrong.

This hard work paid off, because in the process of proving myself, the membership rolls grew, the coffers of the church swelled, buildings were built, baptisteries were filled, the church became a sensation, and the critics quieted their murmurings. By the end of my tenure I had gained a great deal of success. But I also lost a few things along the way: my youthful idealism; my religion; my marriage; my way, and almost my mind. Most of all, I lost touch with the very reason I had entered the vocation in the first place: the love of Christ.

See, I became more concerned with growing a bigger church than with the well-being of individual people. I worked tirelessly to keep the “right” people happy and tithing, and neglected those on the “wrong” side of the tracks. I wanted a prosperous religious career by impressing the suits at the denomination’s headquarters and by meticulously managing my public image. Only years later did I realize that Jesus was not very much involved in any of this.

So that’s what I told my first congregation. I told them that I had indeed been too young to be a pastor, that I had done them a disservice by spending too much energy on my own attempted accomplishments, and not enough energy pointing them to the grace and love found in Christ. I told them that “Christ has shown me that what I thought I knew is worthless…Nothing else matters but this: To know Christ and to know that I belong to him.” I now know a whole lot less than I once thought I did; but what I know now, I know for sure.

Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author of multiple books. You can read more and receive regular e-columns in your inbox at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.

By Ronnie McBrayer

Our three boys were playing football in the backyard this winter when one of them called to me with words I could have never anticipated. Casually, as if he were making a weather observation, he said, “Dad…the dog is on the roof.” I exploded onto the upper deck to discover that my son was alarmingly correct.

Toby, our new little Shih Tzu, had inexplicably crawled beneath the deck railing and was 15 feet across a pitched metal roof, two stories off the ground. I was horrified. My dear wife was worse, deranged with panic. I understood that if this disaster were not averted, I did not have enough pastoral skill, fatherly wisdom, Valium, or hard liquor to assuage the suffering.

So, with the boys in place below, ready to exercise their burgeoning football catching skills, my hand firmly holding my wife by the belt loops at the railing, and aiming every prayer at heaven I could muster, I gently called, “Toby…come here, boy.” He loped over to me as if it was a day at the dog park, and tragedy was dodged.

As crazy as this story is, here is the craziest thing of all: while our entire family mobilized to protect and save this precious little dog, Toby was completely, totally, and blissfully unaware of our efforts. Hands were shaking. Tears were forming. Railings were being scaled. Catch nets were being weaved. Meanwhile, he was sniffing leaves, enjoying the view, and inspecting the strange metal floor beneath his feet.

Toby doesn’t understand this, but he doesn’t have to; he simply lives a dog’s life in the loving arms of those who always look out for him. Sometimes I perceive God working the same way. I sense him hanging in the atmosphere around us; ethereal, intangible, but very real. Occasionally, I glimpse him lurking within and brooding over the circumstances of life, sometimes gently calling, but most of the time just ready to catch us when we fall; or to save us from ourselves when we’ve crawled too far out on the ledge. Even while our well-being is in jeopardy, we are enfolded by a protecting love.

Yes, I believe there is a mysterious, unseen, hovering God in the universe that we cannot always understand, see, or otherwise tangibly perceive. But we know he is there. His enveloping love for us is very real, and yes, it is very good.

Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author of multiple books. You can read more and receive regular e-columns in your inbox at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.

By Ronnie McBrayer

Lately, one of Jesus’ more cryptic phrases has been making laps inside my head. These words were spoken on the last night Jesus was with his disciples: “Abide in me, and I will abide in you.” Jesus was welcoming his disciples to remain connected with him and to rely upon him. “Stay put. Don’t abandon your relationship with me,” Jesus was saying. Eugene Peterson translates Jesus words like this, “Make your home in me.”

That’s not so cryptic, as we understand home quite well. Home is where each day begins and where it ends. Home is where we eat, rest, relax, take shelter, play, and love. Home is where we go when there is no other place, and where we always return. Home is that glorious place where we walk around in our socks and underwear, scratch our backsides without worrying about who is looking, and lounge around on the weekend without showering or shaving if we so choose. Home is where we can drop all our burdens, barriers and coping mechanisms.

Home is sweet, it is where the heart is, and it is our castle. It is where we bring the bacon and where we wait for the cows to arrive. Home is like no other place in the world, and no matter where or how far we travel, home is where we always call, well, home. It is where we feel safe, secure, and ultimately, where we can be ourselves. Jesus said, “Make your home”—relax and be yourself—“with me.”

I believe that a large portion of our personal suffering stems from the fact that we often go looking for “home” in all the wrong places. The wrong career, the wrong person or relationship, the wrong ambitions: We are searching for that comfortable place where we can prop our shoeless feet on the coffee table and be accepted as the real, natural people that we are.

When that no-strings-attached acceptance is not forthcoming, we begin to work, worry, toil and sweat, manipulate and be manipulated, all in an attempt to get others to take us as we are. We end up being strangers to ourselves, living within the artificial structures we have created, but it sure isn’t home sweet home. It’s miserable. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can give ourselves over to Christ, in total dependence, and find rest for our homesick souls.

Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author of multiple books. You can read more and receive regular e-columns in your inbox at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.

By Ronnie McBrayer

I am sometimes suspicious of how we employ our faith. Don’t get me wrong, faith is important to me, and I have given my life to it. But sometimes I treat my faith like it is a medicine cabinet or a pharmaceutical, going to it only when something is wrong, or if I am looking for a quick remedy.

“My head hurts,” so I go to the cabinet looking for a pain reliever. “I have a stomach ache,” so I reach in for a spiritual antacid. “I feel so uncertain,” so I explore my therapeutic options. “I’m feeling a bit anxious,” so I look for something that will serve as divine Prozac.

The faith that is peddled by many pulpits today is little more than a sedative. It helps people to forget their pain and suffering, helps them sleep at night, and keeps them hanging on for next week’s dose of tranquility; but it does very little to move people to a place of growing, spiritual health. Thus, we can easily succeed in converting our faith into a first-aid kit, only turning to it when something hurts, and leaving it in the cabinet otherwise. Yes, when life hurts I want relief. Yet, the real power of faith is not its ability to magically stop our pain or to provide a fix to get us through a rough spot. Faith simply doesn’t remove our troubles and worries, offering bubble-gummed-flavored baby aspirin and cartooned-band-aids.

Rather, faith offers us a new way to live, an opportunity to change our lifestyle. It does more than medicate our boo-boos or make us happy when we have been made sad. On the contrary, faith has the power to transforms us, to shape and fit us for life, making us whole and well. It would do us well to hear some of the earliest words of Christian faith, written by the Apostle James. He said, “My friends, faith that does not lead to change is a faith that is dead.”

It is possible to find great inspiration in our faith; to be comforted and reassured that or faith rests in the right place. Yet, if such beliefs do not have transformative power in our lives, then we do not have faith at all. Instead, we are addicted to a spiritual tranquilizer that blinds us to the reality of our world and the renewal God seeks to produce.

Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author. His books include “Leaving Religion, Following Jesus” and “The Jesus Tribe.” Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.

By Ronnie McBrayer

Many people begin their walk of faith, and everything goes as they expected. Out of genuine conviction, they attend church, learn from the Scriptures, volunteer, serve, give, and become “productive, committed, faithful, Christians.” But somewhere along the way things go terribly wrong.
The orderly, stalwart faith that used to “work” for these true believers becomes a muddled mess. Yes, they once taught Sunday school, sang in the choir, chaperoned the youth group, chaired the Stewardship Committee, and had bullet-proof answers to all questions of faith. But then, all at once or over an extension of time, their faith splintered into a million tiny pieces. A divorce. A child falls deathly ill and heaven seems silent as a stone. An accident leaves the once healthy college student broken and mutilated. The circumstances come in variegated form, but the impact is the same.
It is more than a crisis of faith, more than theological bump in the road; it is an unraveling that robs people of their confidence and comfort. The once unshakable believer descends downward into the blackness of doubt. Adding insult to injury, sometimes the only thing the church or we ministerial types can say in those moments is, “Pray more. Just believe. Let go and let God. Try harder.” Not only is this insensitive, asinine advice, it simply won’t work. Those who have hit this kind of barricade feel so dismantled, that to keep doing what they were doing—only with more enthusiasm—is impossible.
Here is your choice: You can harden your heart and sweep the shards of your faith into the dustpan, giving up on God completely; or you can pick up the broken pieces, with bloody hands and heart, and reassemble faith on the other side of doubt. No, it won’t be the same faith you once had; it will be dramatically different. It won’t be an improved or updated version of the beliefs you formerly held; it will be a new construction altogether. This reassembled faith will not provide you with all the answers to all your questions; instead, it will help you to see the world, God, and people differently.
So if you find yourself crushed against what feels like the concrete and steel of disbelief, with not a drop of faith left, I understand. Don’t throw it all away just yet. In the breaking, you might find that faith has a new beginning.
Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author. His books include “Leaving Religion, Following Jesus” and “The Jesus Tribe.” Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.

By Ronnie McBrayer

“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” These are the words of Simon Peter, one of Jesus’ first disciples. And like most words put down on paper, these instructions have not always honored the intent of the author.
Peter wrote this during a time when Christianity was new and very often viewed with suspicion. Thus, a graceful and thoughtful explanation “for the hope that you have” was absolutely required. Thousands of years later, Christianity is still handled with suspicion by many. Not because it is a novel invention, but because a large core of its adherents have misapplied Simon Peter’s good words.
Having a prepared answer—a ready opportunity to dialogue and discuss beliefs with others—has been replaced with defensiveness, anger, and out-and-out hostility. Many have forgotten to read the second half of old Peter’s instructions: “But do this in a gentle and respectful way.”
Yes, I am a follower of Jesus. Yes, I consider myself a Christian (on most days). Yes, there are a number of essential beliefs important to me and to which I hold. Yes, some of these beliefs are in conflict with the beliefs of others, and these conflicts are not easily dismissed. But my beliefs, as important as they may be, do not give me the right to be belligerent toward others who do not share my beliefs.
This may be the way the world works, but it is not the way of Christ. For Christians, if Jesus is who this thing is about, then things should be different. Our beliefs need not,  should not, cannot, must not be used to hurt or harm others.
Personally, I don’t think Jesus came to create an “in” group. I believe he came to create a “come on in” group, a crowd of fellow-journeyers who come to know God, experience grace, live life, and serve others together. But why would anyone want to come in to such a group if its representatives are constantly rude, arrogant, and unyielding?
Even if such a group had all the answers to all the questions in the world (and humility should caution anyone from making such a claim), it would be impossible to hear what they had to say, because it is simply impossible to hear the truth when it is communicated from a hard heart.
Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author. His books include “Leaving Religion, Following Jesus” and “The Jesus Tribe.” Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.  

By Ronnie McBrayer

Five hundred years ago there was a group of Christians living in Europe known as the Anabaptists. The Anabaptists were “anti-baptizers,” scorning infant baptism and a heap of other cherished church doctrines. Because of this, and their refusal to join their faith to the ruling civil powers, they were violently persecuted by governments, Catholics, and Protestants alike.
One such persecution broke out in 1569 in Holland, and on a winter day a bailiff was sent to arrest an Anabaptist leader named Dirk Willems. He was charged with peculiar crimes: He had been holding secret religious meetings in his home and had allowed others to be re-baptized there. It was a crime punishable by death, so Dirk ran for his life with the bailiff right on his heels. Willems came to a small ice-covered lake and threw himself across it.
It held his weight as he ran, and he crossed safely to the other side. But the ice did not hold for his pursuer. The bailiff chasing Dirk crashed through the ice into the freezing water. Dirk Willems immediately turned back and rescued the man from the ice. For his kindness Dirk was immediately arrested, and after refusing to renounce his faith, was later burned at the stake.
Willems instinctively, reflexively turned and rescued his enemy, though he knew death would be the price he would pay. Here is the question asked by today’s Anabaptists: “Why did Dirk Willems turn back?” In the words of Joseph Liechty, “It was not a rational choice. It was not an ethical decision. It was an intuitive response. No combination of mental calculations could have carried him back across the ice…The only force strong enough to take Dirk back across the ice was an extraordinary outpouring of love, and the only love I know [like that] is the love taught and lived by Jesus.”
Can we reach a place in our walk with Christ, that when we encounter hate, suffering, injustice, frustration, or tribulation, that our immediate and reflexive response will be Christ responding through us? A place where we don’t have to think about it, we don’t have to plan a response, but supernaturally and instinctively, Jesus comes alive in our hearts?
Dirk Willems acted as he did because he had been so spiritually shaped and formed by the person of Jesus, that his response was the only response he was capable of making.
Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author. His books include “Leaving Religion, Following Jesus” and “The Jesus Tribe.” Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.

by Ronnie McBrayer

A man went to his rabbi and complained, “There are ten of us living in one room. Life is unbearable! What can I do?” The rabbi answered, “Go home and take your goat into the room with you.”  The man was incredulous; but the rabbi was insistent. “Do as I say. Come back in a week.”
A week later the man returned looking more distraught than ever. “Rabbi, please, we cannot stand it. The goat is filthy!” The rabbi then told him, “Very well, go home and let the goat out. Come back in a week.” A radiant man returned to the rabbi a week later. His perspective had been astonishingly altered. “Life is beautiful,” he cried. “We enjoy every minute of living together without the goat—and there’s only ten of us!”
Jesus once encountered a group of ten, living together, with little for which to be thankful. These ten had more than a stinking goat in the room. They had leprosy. But Jesus did more than change their perspective: He healed them. They were physically well, and turned together from death’s door. Yet, they did not turn together toward their healer.
Only one came back to Jesus. He fell at the feet of Christ and worshiped. This was a thankful man. This was a man with perspective. Jesus was surprised by this. “Were not all ten cleansed?” Jesus asked rhetorically. “Then, where are the other nine?”
Why didn’t the others come back? Maybe one waited to see if the cure was for real. Maybe another intended to go back later, as soon as possible. Maybe one ran to the family from which he had long been separated or got so entranced with having his life back, he simply forgot to return to the one who had performed the healing. I don’t know for sure.
But I do know that we can become so absorbed in our happiness—in our blessings or good fortune—that we fail to consider the Source of those blessings. We do not maintain perspective, and can sometimes say “Thank you,” because we know that it is the proper thing to do, but saying it and feeling it are two different things.
During this holiday week, may the Source of every good and perfect gift give us the greatest gift of all: A grateful heart. In return, may we fall at his feet with thanksgiving.
Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, speaker, and author. His books include “Leaving Religion, Following Jesus” and “The Jesus Tribe.” Visit his website at www.ronniemcbrayer.net.

by Ronnie McBrayer

I love puzzles. Crosswords, brainteasers, and search-a-words; but nothing beats an old fashioned jigsaw puzzle with about gazillion pieces spilling out of the box. Right now there is a monster-sized puzzle strewn across our family’s dining room table. I have been persistently working on it for so long that I can’t remember the last evening we ate dinner at the table.
My family has learned not to monkey around with me while I am hip-deep in puzzle solving. Yes, assist me—I’ll take all that I can get—but don’t walk by and offer advice or a litany of critiques unless you are willing to give the pieces a try yourself. Time, patience, and the right kind of help: these are the requirements for solving puzzles, even puzzles of faith; because sometimes the puzzle doesn’t match the box we were given. Sometimes the pieces don’t fit together at all.
I’ve met a legion of people who begin their walk of faith and everything goes as it “should.” They go to church, learn stuff from the Bible, volunteer, serve, give, and become “productive, committed, faithful, Christians,” whatever that is supposed to mean. But then these good soldiers go through a divorce; or they are mistreated by a religious organization, or lose their career. Maybe their child gets sick or their spouse dies.
The result is much more than the proverbial crisis of faith; I have one of those every Monday morning. No, it is much deeper, more life-altering and foundation-shaking than that. The answers they used to rely upon, the faith that formerly sustained them, no longer works. The fitly-paired pieces of the puzzle go scattering in the wind.
What is the answer to these miss-fitted and missing pieces puzzles of life and faith? Time, patience, and a little help. Time and patience to keep working it out and to sift through the prefabricated pictures of what life once promised. Time and patience to ask dangerous questions and to listen for unexpected responses. Time and patience to curse, pray, cry, heal, and hopefully come through on the other side, even if a few pieces to the puzzle are never found.
So, if a friend is stuck trying to solve their puzzle, offer the right kind of help. Quietly sit down with them and dig in. Patiently sort through the pieces, and help put it together, whatever “it” turns out to be.